The Miss Silver Mysteries Volume Six: Miss Silver Comes to Stay, Mr. Brading's Collection, and The Ivory Dagger

By Patricia Wentworth

Three mysteries featuring governess-turned-sleuth Miss Silver, who “has her place in detective fiction as surely as Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot” (Manchester Evening News).

Retired governess Maud Silver is about as unlikely a sleuth that Scotland Yard has ever seen—but her unassuming manner only helps her unravel their most mystifying cases in “some of the best examples of the British country-house murder mystery” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine).
 
Miss Silver Comes to Stay: While visiting an old school chum in the rustic town of Melling, Miss Silver soon finds that its bucolic charm hides undercurrents of murderous vengeance. When Melling’s prodigal son returns with a lot of money and a long-held grudge against the town, he intends to sell his manor house and be done with Melling forever. But this cozy English hamlet isn’t finished with him . . . and it may be about to finish him off.
 
Mr. Brading’s Collection: Jewel collector Lewis Brading leaves little to chance, housing his gems in a concrete annex protected by the latest security system and his own watchful eye. But he still suspects something might be wrong. He consults Maud Silver, who tells him to send his collection to a museum as soon as possible. Ignoring her advice may be the last mistake Brading ever makes . . .
 
The Ivory Dagger: Bill Waring had a promising career and the love of a young beauty—until a freak train accident puts him in the hospital for a month. When he gets out, he is stunned to learn that his beloved has become engaged to another. Determined to win her back, Bill follows her and her charmless new fiancé on a weekend in the country. When her new betrothed is stabbed to death, blame falls squarely on Bill—and only the brilliant, demure Maud Silver can clear his name.
 
These charming British mysteries featuring the unstoppable Miss Silver—whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting belie a keen intellect and a knack for cracking even the toughest cases—are sure to delight readers of Agatha Christie, Ellis Peters, and Dorothy L. Sayers.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Dec 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781504057684

Patricia Wentworth

Patricia Wentworth (1878–1961) was one of the masters of classic English mystery writing. Born in India as Dora Amy Elles, she began writing after the death of her first husband, publishing her first novel in 1910. In the 1920s, she introduced the character who would make her famous: Miss Maud Silver, the former governess whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting served to disguise a keen intellect. Along with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Miss Silver is the definitive embodiment of the English style of cozy mysteries.

Book preview

The Miss Silver Mysteries Volume Six

Miss Silver Comes to Stay, Mr. Brading’s Collection, and The Ivory Dagger

Patricia Wentworth

CONTENTS

MISS SILVER COMES TO STAY

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

MR. BRADING’S COLLECTION

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

THE IVORY DAGGER

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Preview: Through the Wall

About the Author

Miss Silver Comes To Stay

ONE

MARY STUART WROTE, ‘My end is in my beginning.’ It is easier to agree with her than to decide what is the beginning, and what the end. When Miss Silver came down to Melling on a visit to an old school friend she became involved in a story which had begun a long time before, and whose end may yet be quite unknown, since what happened yesterday must needs affect today and set out a pattern for tomorrow. It is not, of course, necessary to follow the pattern, but is sometimes easier, and ease is always tempting.

Just where does the story begin—twenty-five years before, when two young girls went to a dance and met the same young man? A fair girl who was Catherine Lee, and a dark girl who was Henrietta Cray—Catherine and Rietta, distant cousins, schoolfellows, and bosom friends, eighteen years of age, and James Theodulph Lessiter, just turned twenty-one. Perhaps it begins there, or perhaps still farther back when three generations of Lessiters took whatever they wanted from the world and paid out of a steadily dwindling capital till in the end there wasn’t much for the last of them except an impoverished estate, a shabby old house, and an inherited conviction that the world was his oyster.

The story might begin there, or a little later when what James Lessiter wanted most out of all the world was Rietta Cray. He told her so in the orchard of Melling House under a May moon when she was nineteen and he was twenty-two. She told Catherine, and Catherine condoled. ‘You know, darling, there really isn’t any money at all, and Aunt Mildred will be furious.’ On the strength of long association and distant kinship Mrs. Lessiter was Aunt Mildred to both the girls. None of which would have made either of them anything but a most unwelcome daughter-in-law, and what little money there was remained quite firmly in Mildred Lessiter’s hands. James couldn’t lay a finger on it. He went out into the world to make his fortune with large expectations and a conquering air. At twenty-three Catherine had married Edward Welby and was gone from Melling, and Rietta was settling down to nurse an invalid mother and bring up her sister’s boy, Carr Robertson, because Margaret and her husband were in India. Margaret died there, and after a decent interval Major Robertson married again. He sent money for Carr’s education, but he did not come home, and by and by he practically ceased to write. He died when Carr was fifteen.

Perhaps the story begins there with Carr’s grudge against a world which would have got along very well without him. Or perhaps it begins with Catherine Welby’s return as a childless widow. Mildred Lessiter was still alive. Catherine went to see her, cried a good deal, and was offered the Gate House at a nominal rent. ‘Really quite sweet, you know, Rietta—those dear little crinkly roses all over it. And being in the grounds of Melling House—well, it’s rather nice, don’t you think? And Aunt Mildred says Alexander can keep up the garden for me whilst he’s doing all the rest. It’s too, too sweet of her, and I shall be able to live on practically nothing at all, which is just as well, because that’s about as much as I shall have when everything is settled. It’s a very great shock to me Edward’s affairs being in such a state, and you know, when you’ve been accustomed to having everything it isn’t at all easy to come down to thinking about every halfpenny—is it?’

Rietta gave her an odd fleeting smile.

‘I don’t know, Cathy, but then, you see, I’ve never had—’ She paused deliberately, and then added, ‘everything.’

It was fifteen years after this that Miss Silver came down to visit her old friend Mrs. Voycey.

TWO

AS THE TRAIN came to a standstill in Lenton station, Miss Maud Silver closed a capacious handbag upon her knitting and the purse from which she had just extracted her railway ticket, and descending a rather inconveniently high step, stood looking about her for a porter and for Mrs. Voycey. The question of whether she would recognise her after a lapse of years, which might very easily have obliterated any likeness to the girl whom she remembered, was naturally in the forefront of her mind. Cissy Christopher had become Cecilia Voycey, and the friends who had started as schoolgirls were elderly women.

Miss Silver did not consider that she herself had changed very much. Looking pensively that very morning at a photograph taken when she was leaving school to enter upon her first engagement as a governess, she reflected that even after all this time it was not at all a bad likeness. There was now some grey in her hair, but a good deal of its original mousy brown persisted, and probably would persist to the end. She still did it in just the same way, with an Alexandra fringe very firmly controlled under a net. Her neat features had not altered. Her pale, smooth skin had become older without losing its pallor or its smoothness. As for her clothes, they were not the same, but they were in the same manner—the black coat in its fifth year of faithful service, the little fur tie, older, thinner, paler than it had been ten years ago, but still so cosy, so comfortable. Even in the summer she went nowhere without it, much experience having warned her how extremely cold and draughty a village can become overnight. Her hat almost perfectly resembled the hat in the photograph, having a great many bows of ribbon at the back and a bunch of forget-me-nots and pansies on the left-hand side. This continuity of what she felt to be quiet good taste should make the task of recognition easier for her friend. But Cissy Christopher— well, candidly, almost anything might have happened to Cissy Christopher. The picture of a large, raw-boned girl with a poking head, a rattling tongue, and quite enormous feet came back from the past.

Looking along the platform, Miss Silver shook her head and dismissed the vision, for there, advancing to meet her, was a massive figure in thick checked tweeds and a rather battered hat on the back of her head. Not Cissy Christopher, who had been dead and gone for many a year, but quite undoubtedly Cecilia Voycey, flushed, bustling, hearty, and full of the kindest welcome.

Before she knew what was going to happen Miss Silver was being kissed.

‘Maud! I’d have known you anywhere! Well, of course we’re both a few years older—we won’t say how many. Not that I mind. I always say being elderly is the best part of one’s life. You’ve got over all the tiresome things like being in love, and wondering what’s going to happen to you—you’ve made your friends, and you’ve made your life, and you go along very pleasantly. Hawkins—here!’ She reached out sideways and grabbed a passing porter by the arm. ‘This lady has got some luggage. Tell him what it is, Maud, and he’ll bring it out to the car.’

As they drove away from the station yard in the small car which appeared to be a very tight fit for its owner, Mrs. Voycey was loud in her pleasure at this eagerly-awaited reunion.

‘I’ve been counting the days—just like we used to when it was getting on for the end of term. Funny we should have lost sight of each other for all these years, but you know how it is—you swear eternal friendship, and at first you write reams, and then you don’t write so much, and then you don’t write at all. Everything’s new, and you meet a lot of different people. And then, of course, I went out to India and married, and I wasn’t very happy, though I dare say it was a good deal my own fault, and if I had my time over again, which I wouldn’t for the world, I’d probably manage much better. But anyhow it’s all over now. Poor John died getting on for twenty years ago, and we’d been separated for some time before that. I came in for some money from an uncle, so I was able to leave him, and I’ve been living at Melling ever since. My father was the parson there, you remember, so it’s always felt like home. He only lived a year after I came back, but I built myself a house and I’m very comfortable. Now, what about you? You started off as a governess—what on earth made you take up detecting? You know, when I met Alvina Grey—she’s a sort of distant cousin—and she told me all about you and that frightful murder case—the woman with the eternity earrings—well, first of all I thought it couldn’t be you, and then she described you, and I thought perhaps it was, and then I wrote to you and—here we are! But you haven’t told me what made you take it up—detecting, I mean.’

Whatever else the long years had changed, Cecilia Voycey still had Cissy Christopher’s rattling tongue. Miss Silver gave her slight prim cough.

‘It is rather difficult to say—a combination of circumstances—I believe I was guided. My scholastic experience has been extremely valuable.’

‘You must tell me all about everything,’ said Mrs. Voycey with enthusiasm.

She had at this point to draw in very close to the side of the lane in order to avoid two young people standing under the opposite hedge. Miss Silver, observing them with interest, saw a girl in scarlet and a tall young man in grey flannel slacks and a loose tweed jacket. The girl was excessively pretty—really quite unnecessarily so. A singular figure for a country lane on an autumn day, with her flaring clothes, her pale gold hair, her careful complexion. The young man had a dark, tormented look.

Mrs. Voycey waved a hand out of the window, squeezed past them, and explained.

‘Carr Robertson. He’s down here on a visit to his aunt Rietta Cray who brought him up. The girl’s staying there too. He brought her—just like that, you know, without a with your leave or by your leave—at least that’s what Catherine Welby says, and she always seems to know all Rietta’s affairs. Manners of the present day! I wonder what my father would have said if one of my brothers had just walked in and said. This is Fancy Bell.’

‘Fancy?’

‘That’s what he calls her—I believe her name is Frances. And I suppose we shall hear that they are engaged—or married!’ She gave a hearty laugh. ‘Or perhaps not—you never can tell, can you? You’d have thought once bitten, twice shy. Carr’s been married already—another of these flighty blonde girls. She ran off with someone, and died. It’s only about two years ago, and you’d have thought it would have made him more careful.’

‘She is very pretty,’ said Miss Silver mildly.

Mrs. Voycey snorted in the manner for which she had so often been reproved at school.

‘Men haven’t a particle of sense,’ she declared.

They came out of the lane upon a typically rural scene—a village green complete with pond and ducks; the church with its old graveyard; the Vicarage; the village inn with its swinging sign depicting a wheatsheaf whose original gold was now almost indistinguishable from a faded background; the entrance pillars and lodge of a big house; a row of cottages, their gardens still bright with sunflower, phlox, and Michaelmas daisy.

‘I’m just on the other side of the Green,’ said Mrs. Voycey. She took a hand off the wheel to point. ‘That’s the Vicarage next the church—much too big for Mr. Ainger. He’s a bachelor, but his sister keeps house for him. I don’t like her—I never did—though I don’t say she doesn’t make herself useful in the village, because she does. He’d like to marry Rietta Cray, but she won’t have him—I don’t know why, because he’s a very charming person. Anyhow, that’s Rietta’s house, the little white one with the hedge. Her father was our doctor—very much respected. And the drive going up between those pillars takes you to Melling House. It belongs to the Lessiters, but old Mrs. Lessiter died a few years ago, and the son hasn’t been near the place for more than twenty years, not even to his mother’s funeral, because it was in the war and I believe he was out of England. He was engaged to Rietta, you know, but it didn’t come off—no money, though he’s made a lot since—just one of those boy and girl affairs. But neither of them has married anyone else, and now we’re all quite terribly interested because he has just come back. After all these years! Not of course that anything is likely to come of it, but in a village you might as well be dead as not take an interest in your neighbours.’

At this point Miss Silver was understood to say that people were always interesting.

Mrs. Voycey slowed down to avoid a dog.

‘Shoosh, Rover—you can’t scratch in the middle of the road!’ She turned back to Miss Silver. ‘Somebody’s bound to run over him some day, but I hope it won’t be me.’ She pointed again. ‘Catherine Welby lives in the lodge of Melling House—there, just inside the pillars. They call it the Gate House, but it’s really just a rather better sort of lodge. She is some sort of connection of the Lessiters—very convenient for her, because she gets the house for practically nothing, and all the fruit and vegetables she wants into the bargain. So I hope James Lessiter won’t turn her out, for I’m sure I don’t know what she would do if he did.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘Her means are narrow?’

Mrs. Voycey nodded with emphasis.

‘Practically non-existent, I should say, though you’d never think so to look at her. I’ll ask her to tea, and you’ll see for yourself. She’s still very pretty, though I always preferred Rietta’s looks myself. They’re the same age, forty-three, but no one makes anything of that nowadays. Creams, powders, washes, lipstick, and permanent waving—really as long as you keep your figure there’s no need to look any age at all. Catherine might be no more than thirty. Of course if you put on weight like I have you’re out of it, and anyhow I don’t suppose I could have been bothered—fiddle-faddles aren’t in my line. Ah, now—here we are!’

As she spoke she turned in at the miniature drive of a miniature villa. Beds of scarlet geranium and bright blue lobelia bloomed on either side of the front door. They were hardly less brilliant than the red brick of the walls. After twenty years’ exposure to the elements Staplehurst Lodge looked as if it had just come from the builder’s hands, with its emerald paint, its shining door-knocker, and its generally spick and span appearance. It stood out from the village background like a patch of pink flannelette on some old soft brocade. This, however, was not a simile which would have occurred to Miss Silver, who had no affection for domestic architecture of the early English type—‘So dark, so inconvenient, and often so sadly insanitary.’ She considered Staplehurst Lodge a very comfortable residence, and was both touched and pleased when her old friend slipped a hand inside her arm, squeezed it affectionately, and said,

‘Well, this is my little place, and I hope you’ll have a happy visit here.’

THREE

CATHERINE WELBY CAME out of the Gate House, passed between the pillars which marked the entrance to Melling House, and walked along the footpath to the White Cottage. The grass verges on either side were still green although it was late September. A single glance at them showed what kind of summer it had been, but this afternoon it was fine, and so warm that Catherine was even a little too warm in the pale grey flannel coat and skirt which threw up the fairness of her skin and the bright red gold of her hair. She was, as Mrs. Voycey said, a very pretty woman, her figure still slender and her eyes as deep a blue as they had been when she was eighteen. But over and above her prettiness she had something which is far more uncommon. Whatever she wore appeared to be just right both for herself and for the occasion. Her hair was always in the same becoming waves, never too formal, never untidy.

She went in through a small white gate and up a flagged path, pushed open Miss Cray’s front door, and called,

‘Rietta!’

In the sitting-room Rietta Cray gave a quick frown which brought out the likeness to her nephew and called back,

‘I’m here. Come in!’

If there was one person she didn’t want to see at this moment it was Catherine Welby. She did not as a matter of fact wish to see anyone at all, but if you live in a village, it’s no good not wanting to see people, because you have to. She was perfectly well aware that James Lessiter’s return had set everyone remembering that they had once been engaged, and wondering how they would feel and look, and what they would say when they met. Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to let a village forget.

She did not get up when Catherine came in, but continued to bend forward over the table at which she was cutting a child’s frock out of an odd length of material. She had known Catherine for too many years to disturb herself, and if she were to take the hint and think her too busy to be disturbed, there would be no harm done. Her scissors snipped through the end of the stuff before she looked up to see Catherine lighting a cigarette.

‘You look very busy, Rietta. Garments for the poor?’

The quick frown appeared again. In some curious way it gave a young, impulsive look to the dark, straight features. No one had ever called Rietta pretty—her cast of looks was too severe for that. ‘Pallas Athene, with a touch of the Gorgon’s head,’ as a friend of James Lessiter’s had once said after being snubbed. But she had her moments of beauty—fleeting, stormy moments for the most part. As to the rest, her hair was dark, her eyes grey and finely lashed, her figure in the Greek tradition, and her manner a little on the abrupt side. She looked up now and said,

‘What is it?’

Catherine had made herself very comfortable on the window-seat.

‘Well, really, Rietta! You know, sewing isn’t your line—it always puts you in a bad temper. You ought to be thankful to me for coming round and interrupting you.’

‘Well, I’m not. I want to get this done.’

Catherine waved her cigarette.

‘I’m not stopping you, darling—you go on pinning the thing together. I just thought I’d come round and ask you whether you’ve seen James yet.’

This time Rietta didn’t let herself frown. She had a moment of black rage, because of course this was what everyone in Melling was wanting to know. Then she said in the expressionless voice which goes with being angry:

‘No. Why should I?’

‘I don’t know—you might have. As a matter of fact I haven’t either, but of course he only came last night. I wonder what he’s like, and whether he’s worn as well as we have. You know, Rietta, if you took the least trouble, you could look—well, thirty-four.’

‘I don’t in the least want to look thirty-four.’

Catherine’s dark blue eyes opened widely.

‘What’s the good of saying a silly thing like that? What you need is colour—you always did—and a softer expression. You ought to practise in front of the glass.’

Rietta’s lips twitched. Her anger was gone. She could enjoy Catherine. A picture of herself practising soft expressions at a looking-glass assuaged her a good deal.

‘We might practise them together,’ she said.

Catherine blew out a light cloud of smoke.

‘Now you’re laughing at me. I thought you were going to bite my head off when I came in. I do wonder if James has got fat. Such a pity if he has—he was so very nice looking. You did make a most awfully handsome couple—only of course he ought to have fallen in love with somebody fair like me. You know, it was very nice of me not to try and take him away from you.’

Rietta Cray lifted those fine grey eyes of hers and allowed them to dwell for a moment upon Catherine. Since it was perfectly well known between them that Catherine had tried and failed, there appeared to be no need to say anything more about it. Rietta therefore said nothing. After a moment she went on pinning the small pink frock.

Catherine laughed amiably and returned to James Lessiter.

‘I don’t know whether it’s worse to get stout or scraggy. James must be forty-five.’ She drew at her cigarette and added, ‘He’s coming in to have coffee with me to-night. You’d better come, too.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘You’d better. You’ll have to meet him some time. Get it over in a sensible friendly way when you can be looking your best, instead of bumping into him anywhere by chance when your hair is coming down in the rain, or half the village is lined up watching to see how you take it.’

For a brief moment a bright touch of scarlet gave Rietta Cray the colour she lacked. A dangerous anger had set it glowing. It was instantly controlled. She said,

‘We’re not schoolgirls. There is nothing to take. If James is going to be here, naturally we shall meet. But I shall be very much surprised if he stays for long. He will find Melling very dull.’

‘He has made a lot of money,’ said Catherine in a pensive voice. ‘Look here, Rietta, do come off your high horse! It’s going to make a lot of difference to have Melling open again and, after all, you and I are James’ oldest friends. It can’t be very cheerful for him coming back to an empty house. I do think we must give him a bit of a welcome. Come along in to coffee this evening!’

Rietta gave her a straight look. It would have been so much more natural for Catherine to want to have—and keep—James Lessiter to herself. She was up to something, and presently, no doubt, the cat would slip out of the bag. Or most likely not a cat at all, but one of Catherine’s sleek, silky kittens, with innocent eyes and whiskers dripping with cream. Only you don’t get cream in bags, or anywhere else, in this post-war world. She said nothing, only looked and allowed herself to smile just enough to let Catherine see that she hadn’t got away with it.

Did a little natural colour deepen the very careful tinting behind the thin haze of cigarette smoke? Catherine Welby got up gracefully and without haste.

‘Well, come if you can,’ she said. Then, turning before she reached the door, ‘Carr out?’

‘He and Fancy have gone into Lenton.’

Catherine Welby laughed.

‘Is he going to marry her?’

‘I shouldn’t advise you to ask him. I haven’t.’

‘He’ll be damned silly if he does. She’s too like Marjory. It’ll be the same story all over again.’

‘You haven’t any right to say that.’

Catherine blew her a kiss.

‘Waste of time trying to high-hat me—you ought to know that after all these years. I’m just using my common sense, and you’d better use yours and choke him off if you don’t want another crash—I should think it would just about finish him. Did he ever find out who Marjory went off with?’

‘No.’

‘Well, she saved everyone a lot of trouble by not surviving. I mean, after she’d come back down and out and he’d taken her in and nursed her, he couldn’t very well have got a divorce, could he? Solitary instance of tact on her part, but rather wasted if he’s going to do the same thing all over again. Well, I’ll be seeing you.’

FOUR

FANCY BELL LOOKED sideways under her long lashes and observed her companion’s gloom. With a faint sigh she turned to the much more agreeable spectacle of her own enchanting face and figure reflected in the looking-glass at the back of a milliner’s window. A bit daring that scarlet—hit or miss, as you might say—but to judge from the way in which practically every man they passed had looked and looked again, it was a hit all right. A lovely contrast they made, her and Carr. Very good looking he was—nobody could say anything different. And of course nothing like that dark, gloomy type for making a fair girl look even fairer than she was. And he was ever so nice really, only it would make things a lot easier if he would smile a bit and look as if he was enjoying her company. But of course you couldn’t have everything.

There was a hard core of common sense behind that very decorative facade. You couldn’t have everything, so you had to make up your mind just what you wanted most. Young men with plenty of money asked you to go away for week-ends. Well, she wasn’t that sort of girl and she let them know it—no offence meant and none taken, but they didn’t generally try it on a second time. The show-girl business was all very well while it lasted, but it didn’t last for ever. The sensible person who was Frances expected Fancy to get her a chance of settling in life, and she knew just what she wanted—a lift in the world, but not such a big one that your in-laws were going to look down on you—enough money to have a nice little home and, say, three children—and someone to do all the rough work, because you don’t want to let yourself go, and she’d always kept her hands nice. Of course she’d have to do a good bit, especially after the babies came. She wouldn’t mind that. Frances had it all planned out. She was considering whether Carr Robertson would do for the lead in this private play of hers. He had a job and he had a little money of his own, and Fancy would find it quite easy to be in love with him, but Frances wasn’t going to let her do anything silly.

She put up a hand and pulled at his sleeve.

‘Here’s the place Mrs. Welby said, where she has her hair done. I’ll be an hour, if you can put in the time. Sure you can?’

He said, ‘Oh, yes,’ in an indifferent tone.

‘All right. And then we’ll have tea. So long.’

He watched her go with a curious feeling of relief. There was going to be a whole hour in which nothing would be expected of him. He needn’t talk, make love, or abstain from making love. His feeling was very much like that with which one sometimes sees one’s guests depart. Their presence may have been welcome, their company enjoyed, but there is something about having your house to yourself again. Only when he did have it to himself there was always the possibility that the welcome solitude would be invaded by an unlaid ghost—Marjory’s step on the stair ... her laughter and her tears... her failing voice: ‘No—no—I’ll never tell you his name. I don’t want you to kill him. No, Carr—no!’

A real voice broke in upon his mood. He glanced up with the quick nervous frown so like Rietta’s and saw Mr. Holderness looking benevolent. One of his earliest recollections was the benevolence of Mr. Holderness accompanied by a half-crown tip. As far as Carr could see, he hadn’t changed a bit—dignified presence, florid complexion, kindly gaze, and rich rolling voice—general slight flavour of the eighteenth century from which his office with its Georgian panelling had never emerged. The firm had ranked as old-fashioned county solicitors then, and the tradition had been maintained ever since. He clapped Carr on the shoulder and enquired whether he was down for long.

‘Rietta will be glad to have you. How is she? Not working too hard, I hope. Last time I saw her I thought she was looking as if she had been overdoing it, and she told me she couldn’t get any help in the garden.’

‘No, she’s had to give up the vegetables. She hasn’t much help in the house either—only Mrs. Fallow for a couple of hours twice a week. I think she does do too much.’

‘Take care of her, my boy, take care of her. Good people are scarce, and she won’t look after herself—women never will. Between ourselves, they’ve every virtue except common sense. But don’t say I said so. No witnesses, you know—and I shall deny it—I shall deny it!’ He let out a fine reverberant laugh. ‘Well, well, I mustn’t stay gossiping. I’ve been in court all day, and I must get on to the office. By the way, I hear James Lessiter is back. Have you seen him at all?’

Carr’s lips twitched into a smile as quick and nervous as his frown.

‘I’ve never seen him in my life. He was off the map before I fetched up in Melling.’

‘Yes, yes—of course—so he was. And now he’s come back a rich man. Pleasant to come across a success story once in a way—very pleasant indeed. You haven’t seen him since he got back?’

‘I don’t think anyone has. As a matter of fact I believe he only arrived last night. Mrs. Fallow has been up there helping the Mayhews.’

‘Ah, yes—Mrs. Lessiter’s cook and butler—very worthy people. Mayhew calls in at the office every week for their wages. That is how I knew that James was expected. He’ll be ringing me up, I expect. It’s made a lot of work, his being out of the country when his mother died. Well, goodbye, my boy. I’m glad to have seen you.’

He passed on. Carr watched him go, and felt his mood changed by the encounter. There had been a time before the world was shattered. Old Holderness belonged to that time, he might even be said to typify it. Life was secure, its circumstances stable. You had the friends you had grown up with, the friends you made at school and college. Term followed term throughout the year, with bright intervals of vacation. Half-crown tips mounted to ten shillings, to a pound. Henry Ainger had given him a fiver on his eighteenth birthday. Elizabeth Moore had given him an old picture of a ship. He had felt romantic about it from the first moment he saw it hanging in a dark corner of her uncle’s antique shop. Odd how a little paint and canvas can become a magic casement. He had seen himself sailing out into life on an enchanted tide—

On a sudden impulse he walked down the street, turned to the left, and stood looking in at Jonathan Moore’s shop window. There was a fine set of red and white ivory chessmen in Manchu and Chinese dress—war formalized into a game. He watched the pieces, admiring the exquisite precision of the carving, angry underneath. Then all at once he straightened up, pushed open the door, and went in. A bell tinkled, Elizabeth came to meet him. The anger dropped out of him and was gone.

She said, ‘Carr!’ and they stood looking at one another.

It was only for a moment that he was able to look at her as if she were a stranger, because though it was nearly five years since they had met, he had known her all his life. But for just that one moment he did see her as if it was the first time—the tall light figure, the clear windblown look she had, brown hair ruffled back from the forehead, bright eager eyes, and a quick tremulous smile. He got the impression of something startled into joy, ready to take flight, to escape, to become unobtainable—the whole thing much too fleeting to pass into conscious thought. She spoke first, in the voice which he had always liked—a pretty, clear voice full of gravity and sweetness.

‘Carr—how nice! It’s been such a long time, hasn’t it?’

He said, ‘A million years,’ and then wondered why he had said it. Only it didn’t matter what you said to Elizabeth—it never had.

She put out a hand, but not to touch him. It was an old remembered gesture.

‘As long as that? My poor dear! Come along through and let’s talk. Uncle Jonathan is out at a sale.’

He followed her into the little sitting-room behind the shop—shabby comfortable chairs, old-fashioned plush curtains, Jonathan Moore’s untidy desk. Elizabeth shut the door. They might have been back in the past before the deluge. She opened a cupboard, rummaged, and produced a bag of caramels.

‘Do you still like them? I think you do. If you really like something you go on liking it, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘I do—I’m quite sure.’ She laughed a little. ‘Whatever happens or doesn’t happen, I shall always have a passion for caramels. I’ve never stopped being thankful that I can eat them without putting on an ounce. Look here, there’s the bag between us, and we can both dip in like we used to.’

He laughed too, all the tension in him relaxed. To come back to Elizabeth was to slip into a place so accustomed, so comfortable, that you didn’t even have to think about it. An old coat, old shoes, an old friend—unromantic, undemanding, utterly restful.

She said, ‘Is it too early for tea? I’ll make some—’ and saw him frown again.

‘No. I’ve got Fancy with me—Frances Bell. We’re staying with Rietta. She’s gone in to Hardy’s to have her hair done, and she will want tea when she comes out.’

Elizabeth’s very clear eyes dwelt on him consideringly.

‘You wouldn’t like to bring her in here? I’ve got quite a new cake.’

He said, ‘Yes, I would.’

Elizabeth nodded.

‘That’s lovely. Then we can just sit and talk. Tell me about her. Is she a friend of yours?’

‘No.’

He didn’t know he was going to say it, but it was no sooner said than he thought, ‘My God—that’s true!’ What sort of a mess had he got himself into, and how far in had he got? It was like walking in your sleep and waking up to find yourself with one foot over a killing drop.

‘Tell me about her, Carr. What is she like?’

The tormented look was back again. He turned it on her.

‘She’s like Marjory.’

‘I only saw her once. She was very pretty.’ It was said without rancour, yet they both remembered that one meeting, because it was after it that Elizabeth had said, ‘Are you in love with her, Carr?’ They were here alone together in this very room, and when he looked away and couldn’t meet her eyes she had taken off her engagement ring and laid it down on the arm of the chair between them, and when he still had nothing to say she had gone out through the far door and up the old stair to her own room overhead. And he had let her go.

Five years ago, but it came back like yesterday. He said,

‘Why did you let me go?’

‘How could I keep you?’

‘You didn’t try.’

‘No—I didn’t try. I didn’t want to keep you if you wanted to go.’

He was silent, because he couldn’t say, ‘I didn’t want to go.’ He had known Elizabeth all his life, and Marjory for three short weeks. At twenty-three it is the new, the unexpected, the unknown, which evokes romance. If the enchanted distance turns upon nearer view into a desert, you have only yourself to thank. Marjory hadn’t changed—he had always had to remind himself of that.

He found himself leaning forward, his hands between his knees, words coming at first jerkily and then with a rush.

‘It wasn’t her fault, you know. I was damnable to live with—and the baby died—she hadn’t got anything. Money was tight. She’d been used to having a good time—lots of people to go about with. I couldn’t give her anything to make up for it. The flat was so cramped—she hated it. I was always away, and there wasn’t any money, and when I was there I was in a filthy temper. You can’t blame her.’

‘What happened, Carr?’

‘I was sent to Germany. I didn’t get demobbed till the end of that year. She never wrote much, and then she didn’t write at all. I got leave, and came home to find strangers in the flat. She’d let it. No one knew where she was. When I got home for good I tried to trace her. I took on the flat again, because I had to live somewhere and I’d got this job in a literary agency. A friend of mine started it—Jack Smithers. You remember, he was up at Oxford with me. He was crocked in the war, and got away with this business before the ugly rush.’

Elizabeth said, ‘Yes?’

He looked up at her for a moment.

‘I had a sort of idea perhaps she would come back. Well, she did. It was a bitter cold January night. I got in just short of midnight, and there she was, huddled up on the divan. She must have been pretty well frozen, because she hadn’t any coat, only a thin suit. She’d got the eiderdown from the bedroom and put the electric fire on, and by the time I got in she was in a burning fever. I got a doctor, but she never had a chance. The swine she’d gone off with had left her penniless in France. She’d sold everything she had to get home. She told me that, but she wouldn’t tell me his name. She said she didn’t want me to kill him. After all he’d done to her—she talked when she was delirious, so I know—after all that she was mad about him still!’

Elizabeth’s voice came into the silence.

‘She might have been thinking about you.’

He laughed angrily.

‘Then she wasn’t! She kept his photograph—that’s how I know, and that’s how I’ll find him some day. It was in the back of her compact under the bit of gauze that’s supposed to keep the powder in. I expect she thought nobody would find it there, but of course she didn’t know she was going to die.’ His voice went harsh. ‘She wouldn’t have believed it if anyone had told her.’

Elizabeth said, ‘Poor Marjory!’

He nodded.

‘I’ve kept that photograph—I’ll find him some time. It was just the head and shoulders cut out and the cardboard scraped down at the back to make it fit, so there’s no photographer’s name, but I’ll know him if I meet him.’

‘People don’t go unpunished, Carr. Don’t try and play hangman. It’s not your line.’

‘Isn’t it? I don’t know—’

There was a silence. Elizabeth let it gather round them. She was leaning back now, watching him between her dark lashes, her long thin hands resting quietly on the green stuff of her skirt. The cream sweater she wore with it came up high about her long throat. There was a small pearl in the lobe of either ear.

Presently Carr began to speak again.

‘Fancy’s rather like her, you know. She’s been a mannequin. At the moment she’s a show-girl—out of a job. She’s worked very hard and she wants to get on. She hopes for a part in what she calls a regular play. I shouldn’t think there’s a chance in a million that she can act. She has to be rather careful about her vowels, because they pronounce them differently in Stepney where she grew up. I believe Mum and Dad still live there, and she wouldn’t dream of cutting loose, because she’s a nice girl and very fond of her family.’

‘And just where do you come in?’ said Elizabeth.

He looked up with a flash of rather bitter humour.

‘She wants to get on, and she’s considering me as a stepping-stone.’

‘Are you engaged?’

‘I believe not.’

‘Have you asked her to marry you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Carr, you must know!’

‘Well, I don’t, and that’s a fact.’

She sat up suddenly, her eyes wide open, her hands clasped.

‘You’ve been letting yourself drift and you don’t know where you’ve got to.’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘Carr, it’s suicidal! You don’t have to marry a girl you don’t care about.’

He said, ‘No.’ And then, ‘It’s quite easy to drift that way when you don’t really care what happens. One gets lonely.’

Elizabeth said very quick and low, ‘It’s better to be lonely by yourself than to be lonely with somebody else.’

The pain in his eyes shocked her.

‘Damnably true. I’ve tried it both ways, so I ought to know. But you see, that once-bitten-twice-shy business doesn’t work—you always think it’s going to be different next time.’

Elizabeth said with energy, ‘Carr, I could shake you! You’re talking nonsense and you know it. You did go honestly off the deep end about Marjory, but this time you don’t even pretend you care a snap of your fingers about this wretched girl.’

His old provoking smile flashed out.

‘Darling, she isn’t a wretched girl. On the contrary, she’s a very nice girl, a perfectly good girl, and a devastatingly pretty one—platinum hair, sapphire eyes, lashes about half a yard long, and the traditional rose-leaf complexion. Wait till you see her!’

FIVE

THE TEA-PARTY WENT off as well as could be expected. Fancy had kicked a little.

‘But who is this Elizabeth Moore? I’m sure I’ve never heard you speak about her. Does she keep a shop?’

‘Her uncle does. He’s rather well known as a matter of fact. The Moores used to have a big country house out beyond Melling. Three of them were killed in the first world war, and the three lots of death duties smashed them. Jonathan was the fourth. When it came to everything being sold up he said he’d have a shop and sell the things himself—that’s how he started. Elizabeth’s father and mother are dead, so she lives with him.’

‘How old is she?’

‘She’s three years younger than I am.’

‘But I don’t know how old you are.’

‘I’m twenty-eight.’

‘Then—she’s twenty-five?’

He burst out laughing.

‘Bright girl! How do you do it? Come along—she’s got the kettle on.’

Mollified by the discovery that Elizabeth was well advanced towards middle age, Fancy followed him. She was ready for a cup of tea all right. Having your head in one of those drying machines made you ever so thirsty. She was still further reassured at the sight of Elizabeth and the friendly shabby room. Miss Moore might be an old friend and all that, but no one could call her a beauty, and she wasn’t a bit smart. That skirt she had on—well, it wasn’t this year’s cut, nor last year’s neither. And the jumper, right high up to the neck and down to the wrists—not a bit smart. Yet almost at once she began to have a feeling that her own scarlet suit was a bit too daring. The feeling went on getting stronger until she could have burst into tears. She couldn’t say Miss Moore wasn’t pleasant, or that she and Carr did anything to make her feel like a stranger, but there it was, that’s what she felt like. They weren’t her sort. That was nonsense—she was as good as anyone, and much prettier and smarter than Elizabeth Moore. Silly to feel the way she did. Mum would say not to go fancying things. And then all of a sudden the feeling went and she was talking to Elizabeth about Mum and Dad, and how she’d got her first job—all that sort of thing, quite nice and comfortable.

When Elizabeth took her upstairs before she left, Fancy stood in front of the fine Queen Anne mirror and said,

‘This is an old house, isn’t it?’

She could see Elizabeth reflected in the mirror—too tall, too thin, but something elegant about her, something that fitted in with the house and the furniture.

Elizabeth said, ‘Yes, it’s very old—seventeenth century. The bathroom used to be a powder-cabinet. All horribly inconvenient, of course, but quite good for business.’

Fancy took out her powder-puff and began to touch up a flawless complexion.

‘I like new things,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why people bother about old ones. I’d like to have a silver bed, and a suite of that grey furniture, and everything else blue.’

Elizabeth smiled.

‘It would be just right for you, wouldn’t it?’

Fancy pursed up her mouth and applied lipstick with an expert touch. She said, ‘M—’ Then, without turning round,

‘You’ve known Carr a long time, haven’t you?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Do you think he’d be difficult to live with? I mean, he gets these moods, doesn’t he? Did he always use to get them?’

She could see in the glass that Elizabeth had moved. She couldn’t see her face any longer. Her voice came a little slower.

‘I haven’t seen him for a long time. He’s been away, you know.’

‘Did you know the girl he married?’

‘I saw her once. She was very pretty.’

‘I’m like her, aren’t I? I didn’t exactly know her, but—’

‘You are a little like her.’

‘Same type?’

‘Yes.’

Fancy put away her powder-puff and lipstick, pulled at the zipper of her scarlet bag. She said in an odd tone,

‘I suppose that’s why—’ She turned abruptly. ‘A girl wouldn’t want to be just a stand-in for somebody else—would she?’

‘No.’

‘I mean, I wouldn’t want to be jealous about her, or anything like that. I knew a girl that married a widower, and she wouldn’t set foot in the house till he’d cleared out all the pictures of his first wife, and I didn’t think that was right, not with her children there. I told Mum about it, and she said, A man that would forget his first wife would forget you—don’t you make any mistake about that. That’s what Mum said, and I wouldn’t be like that, but I wouldn’t want to marry a man if I was going to be the photograph, if you see what I mean.’

‘I see exactly what you mean.’

Fancy heaved a sigh.

‘He’s ever so good-looking, isn’t he? But when it comes to living with someone—well, it might be a case of handsome is as handsome does. I mean, you’ve got to think before you go into anything, don’t you?’ She gave a little quick laugh. ‘I don’t know what you’ll think of me, talking like this. You’re sort of easy to talk to, I don’t know why. Well, I suppose we’d better be going.’

On the way home she said,

‘She isn’t a bit like I thought she was going to be. She’s sort of nice.’

Carr’s mouth twisted.

‘Yes—she’s sort of nice.’

He said it as if he was laughing at her, but there wasn’t anything to laugh at. Carr was funny that way. You did your best to brighten him up and make a joke or two, and you might as well have done it to a brick wall. And then all of a sudden he’d laugh when there wasn’t anything to laugh at. However, so long as he did laugh—

She pursued the theme of Elizabeth Moore.

‘Pity she hasn’t got married, isn’t it? I’d hate not to be married by the time I was twenty-five.’

He laughed outright this time—and what was there funny about that?

‘Well, my sweet, you’ve got quite a long way to go, haven’t you? What is it—another five years?’

‘Six. And I don’t know what there is to laugh about! A girl oughtn’t to leave it too late—Mum says so. She says you get set in your ways, and it’s no good when you’re married, because the man’ll want things his way. I don’t mean to say she’d think he ought to be given in to all along the line, but where there are two, it stands to reason there’s got to be a bit of give and take, and when the children come along—well, there’s a good deal more giving than taking, if you know what I mean. That’s what Mum says, and she brought up six of us, so she ought to know.’

Carr had stopped laughing. He had never felt less in love with Fancy, and he had never liked her half so well. He said,

‘Your mother’s a very sensible woman—I’d like to meet her. And I shouldn’t wonder if you didn’t make someone quite a good wife some day, my sweet.’

‘But not you?’

She didn’t know what took the words off the tip of her tongue, but there they were—she’d said them right out. And he was looking at her with a funny little smile in his eyes and saying,

‘No, I don’t think so.’

Her lovely rose tints deepened. The big blue eyes looked honestly back at him.

‘I know what you mean. We both thought perhaps it would do, but it won’t. I knew that as soon as I saw you with that Elizabeth girl. You’ve been fond of her—haven’t you?’

His look went bleak.

‘A long time ago.’

‘I’d say you’d been very fond of her—I’d say you were pretty fond of her still. You seem to sort of fit in together, if you know what I mean. Were you engaged?’

He used the same words again.

‘A long time ago.’

They walked on in silence. Fancy thought, ‘We can’t go the best part of two and a half miles and never talk. I should scream, and he’d think I’d gone batty. It’s so quiet in these country lanes—you can pretty well hear yourself think.’ She spoke to break the silence.

‘She’s fond of you, too—I could tell that.’

He was frowning, but he wasn’t angry, because he put his hand on her shoulder and patted it.

‘You can always start a marriage agency, if you don’t get off yourself. And now we’ll stop talking about me, and you can tell me all about Mum and the other five of you.’

SIX

CATHERINE WELBY LOOKED round at her sitting-room and thought how pretty it was. Some of the things were shabby, but they were all good, because they had come from Melling House. The little Queen Anne writing-table would fetch a couple of hundred pounds any time she liked to ask for it. Like the Persian rugs it had been a present from Mrs. Lessiter—or so nearly a present that no one was likely to dispute it. Mrs. Mayhew would remember hearing Mrs. Lessiter say, ‘I’m letting Mrs. Welby have those rugs and the little desk out of the Blue Room.’ She had added, ‘They might as well be used.’ But there would be no need for Mrs. Mayhew to remember that, nor would she do so unless encouraged, and it wasn’t Catherine Welby who would encourage her. Nearly all the furniture in the Gate House had come to her on the same slightly debatable tenure. She meant to make no bones about it with James Lessiter. It was, in fact, one of the reasons why she was now expecting him to coffee. The contents of the Gate House were to be exhibited to him in the guise of his mother’s gifts.

She looked round her with gratitude and appreciation. Aunt Mildred had certainly meant her to have the things. Why, the curtains had been cut down from an old put-away pair dating from goodness knows when—faded, but what a heavenly brocade, with its dim rose background and formal wreaths just touched with blue and green. There had been enough of it to cover chairs and sofa, and the cushions repeated the colouring of the wreaths.

Catherine dressed to the room. A gilt-edged mirror over the high mantelshelf reflected her dull blue house-gown, her pretty hair, the turn of her head. All at once she heard the step she was waiting for. She went out into the narrow space at the stair foot and threw open the front door.

‘James—come in! How nice! Do let me look at you! We mustn’t say how many years it is, must we?’

He was bare-headed, in a dark suit without coat or scarf. As she went before him into the lighted room, he laughed and said,

‘It mightn’t be any years at all so far as you are concerned. You haven’t changed.’

She had a radiant smile for that.

‘Haven’t I?’

‘You’re prettier, but I expect you know that without my telling you. What about me—do I get anything?’

She looked at him with genuine amazement. He had been a good-looking boy. At forty-six he was a much handsomer man than anyone could have expected. The photograph Aunt Mildred had been so proud of really hadn’t lied. She went on smiling and said,

‘I expect you’ll do very well without any more conceit than you’ve got.’ Then, with a ripple of laughter, ‘Oh, James, it is nice to see you! Just wait one moment and I’ll fetch the coffee. I only have a morning girl, you know.’

He looked about while she was out of the room. Very familiar stuff, all this furniture—some of it good. He supposed his mother had put it in for her. He’d have to see Holderness and find out where he stood from the legal point of view. If he was going to sell the place, the Gate House would go with it, and he would have to give vacant possession. But if Catherine had it unfurnished and paid rent for it, it might not be possible to turn her out. The bother was, there was probably no set agreement, and nothing to show whether the presence of the Melling House furniture constituted a furnished let. If it did, he could give Catherine notice, but if his mother had given her the furniture, he probably couldn’t. Pretty woman Catherine—prettier than she had been twenty-five years ago—a little too plump in those days. He wondered about Rietta. Just on the cards she might have put on weight—those statuesque girls did sometimes. She must be forty-three.

Catherine came back into the room with the coffee-tray and the name on her lips.

‘Have you seen Rietta?’

‘No—not yet.’

She put the tray down on a little table with a pie-crust edge. A valuable piece—he remembered it. He thought Catherine had done herself pretty well, and a little more than that.

‘It would be fun if we could get her to come over, wouldn’t it? I think I’ll try. There’s one thing, she won’t be out.’

‘Why?’

Catherine laughed.

‘My dear James, you must have forgotten what Melling is like. It hasn’t changed.’

She was lifting the receiver as she spoke. He came across and stood by her side, heard the click as the receiver was taken off, heard Rietta’s voice—like Melling, quite unchanged.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Catherine. Listen, Rietta—James is here ...Yes, right beside me. And we both want you to come over—and if you’re going to make Carr and that girl of his an excuse, I shall know exactly what to think, and so will James.’

Rietta again, quietly,

‘I shall be very pleased to see James again. Don’t keep any coffee for me—I’ve had mine.’

Catherine rang off and turned a laughing face.

‘I thought that would fetch her! She wouldn’t want you to think she minded meeting you.’

‘Why should she?’

‘No reason in the world. It’s funny neither of you have married, isn’t it?’

He said rather abruptly, ‘I’ve had neither the time nor the inclination. One travels much faster alone.’

‘You’ve travelled fast?’

‘Tolerably.’

‘Got where you wanted?’

‘More or less. There are always new horizons.’

She gave him his coffee with a sigh.

‘You must have had wonderful times. Do tell me about them.’

Rietta Cray came into the little square space at the foot of the stair and laid her coat across the newel. She was angry because Catherine had trapped her into coming. She had said ‘No,’ and she had meant ‘No,’ but to say it again with James Lessiter listening was just one of the things she couldn’t do. It must be as plain to him as to everyone in Melling that she met him with friendly indifference. She glanced at her reflection in the old wall mirror. Anger had brought the colour to her cheeks quick and bright. She had come over just as she was in the old red dress she wore at home. The shade was becoming, the long classic folds suited her. She opened the sitting-room door to hear Catherine say,

‘How marvellous!’

James Lessiter got up and came to meet her. He said,

‘Well, Rietta?’

Their hands touched. She felt nothing. The anger